


Wasted Substance

by Sapphy



Series: The Prodigal Sons Verse [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Catwoman (Comics), Harley Quinn (Comics), Injustice: Gods Among Us, Seven Soldiers of Victory, The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Ableism, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Bat Family, Breaking and Entering, Crimes & Criminals, Developing Relationship, Edward Nygma is a massive douche, F/F, F/M, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Imprisonment, Mental Health Issues, Mission Fic, Multi, Open Relationships, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Prison, Protectiveness, Rescue Missions, Sexism, Unconventional Families, Unconventional Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-03-18 22:58:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3587196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Insugency have identified some powerful potential allies. The only problem is, they're in Blackgate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One: Lunchboxes

**Author's Note:**

> First thing first, I just want to let you know I don't have an update schedule for this. I've had this first chapter finished for a while, but I'm struggling with chapter two so I've been putting off posting it. Since inspiration for chapter two still isn't coming too me, I'm posting this in the hope it'll motivate my muse. Any requests for characters you want to see explored in this?
> 
> That said, this is Harley and Selina's fic, so obviously they're the focus here.
> 
> The details about Selina and Thomas' relationship are actually partly based on the comics. They really did team up for a few years just because they had similar code-names. Plus I really like the idea of Selina being someone's bitchy older sister.
> 
> Who's excited for Jonathan? I am. He's one of my all-time faves, and it's a real delight that I'm getting the chance to write him at last. Expect to see a lot more of him as the series progresses. The original idea for his inclusion was Harley's but it fit better with the flow of the chapter to have Selina think of it. Sorry Harles.
> 
> Title as always comes from the story of the prodigal son:
> 
>  
> 
> _13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living._  
>  14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.  
> 15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

Selina shuffles about to get comfy, and adjusts the zoom on her goggles to get a better view of Blackgate.

The night’s work is both comfortingly familiar and completely new to her. She’s cased more joints than she can remember, and this isn’t even the first time she’s targeted a prison, but this is the first time she’s ever gone to work with a good luck kiss on her lips and a packed lunch.

(The lunch, or supper really, given the time, had been handed to her by Alfred just as she was about to leave, with a hard look that made refusing impossible. It’s in a brown paper bag, the top neatly folded, and she’s resisting peeking inside before she’s actually hungry.)

The goggles are a new experience as well. Bruce had made them for her, splicing together one of her spare pairs with the tech from the Batsuit’s cowl, and they’re brilliant. They’ve got ridiculously powerful zoom, heat vision, night vision, even x-ray vision (which isn’t especially useful on this mission, but she amuses herself for a few minutes by turning it on and watching heavily armed skeletons patrol). If she was closer, the facial recognition software would be able to bring up info on anyone from a hundred different international databases, including a clone of the Justice League database Bruce had managed to take before going into hiding, and one stolen from Riddler a few years earlier. (Selina has never liked Eddie, but she has to admit, he is a wonderful source of information. He’s an inveterate gossip, bad as any little old lady, and can never resisting filling his files with pointless but juicy details about his subjects).

She switches over to night vision. It’s not full dark yet, but this is Gotham so there’s a light fog and heavy clouds threatening rain. She loves this city, but by God the weather is foul here. When this whole war is over, she’s taking Bruce to the Caribbean for at least a month. She’s pretty sure he has a holiday home on Antigua.

She smiles at the image of Bruce on holiday. It’s pretty likely he’s never even been to the house, just uses it as cover for his more visible Bat related activities. The man is practically allergic to relaxing, but Selina’s sure with enough time she’ll be able to persuade him. He’s been running himself ragged these last few years, the closest he got to actual rest being the weeks he spent in traction.

She’s watching the guards at the prison, but after a lifetime in the business, her brain notes things like patrol schedules and where the guards go for their cheeky cigarettes and which stations have dogs automatically, no higher brain function required, which leaves her plenty of time for thinking about Bruce.

She’s never had a relationship like this before. Bruce had kissed her goodbye before she left, quick and chaste and unexpected. She’s rarely dated, not unless it was part of a con, and she’s never been with someone who knew her as well as Bruce does. It makes her want to run and never leave all at once, an easy familiarity that warms and terrifies her in equal measure.

She’s not good at being known, never has been, too many years on the wrong side of the law to associate it with anything other than danger. But Bruce has known her for years, knows the worst of her and still somehow sees something worthwhile in her.

The whole thing is made infinitely stranger by the fact that Bruce comes with a ready-made family, sons and a daughter and Alfred and Babs, and she has no idea how to deal with that. Family has always been an abstract concept to her, something other people had, but not her, never her. But now she’s slipping into unfamiliar domesticity with a man with the most complicated family she’s ever met.

Alfred has reacted to her and Bruce’s growing closeness by beginning to call her Miss Selina rather than Miss Kyle, and making her favourite foods more often for dinner. She still feels a little awkward around the old man, aware that he’s now essentially her father in law, even if Bruce and Alfred never put their relationship into words.

The boys are a little easier. Tim and Jason are grown-up, and more importantly, they don’t expect anything from her. She’s always had a soft spot for Jason, the Robin she sees so much of herself in, and she likes Tim. Everyone likes Tim. They’re not looking for a stepmother, but nor do they resent her for her role in Bruce’s life. Jason seems mostly indifferent, too caught up in his own romantic problems to care much what anyone else is doing, and Tim just seems genuinely pleased to see Bruce happy. Or as happy as he ever gets at least, which isn’t very.

Damian she hopes desperately she’ll never have to deal with. She really hates the spoilt little brat, with his smug holier than thou attitude and the heartache he’s caused Bruce, but at the same time she can’t help feeling deeply sorry for him. She knows what it is to grow up to fast, to have only toxic role models. If her chosen profession had been murder rather than theft, she could have ended up a lot like him. Doesn’t make him any more likeable though. She’s guiltily grateful for the war meaning she doesn’t have to try and be any kind of parent to the horrible child.

She doesn’t know the girls especially well, but that’s okay because they’re not so close, or so dependant, as Bruce’s rag-tag flock of sons. Oracle she admires more than likes, impressed by her strength and resolve. Batgirl and Catwoman had had something of a rivalry back in the old days, and that continues to this day, though these days Barbara’s weapon of choice is surveillance rather than bolas. Cassandra she’s met only a handful of times, and had been amused by how much of Bruce she saw in the strange silent girl. The little blond Batgirl is someone she’s really only seen from a distance, a dark figure streaking across Gotham’s rooftops, never still and usually chattering. She’s more of a child than the rest of Bruce’s family, closer to a normal kid, and Selina can’t help disapproving a little of Bruce allowing her into his world.

Her own family had consisted of a half-remembered half-imagined woman who’d died before Selina could walk, and later an alcoholic sexually abusive Carnie who’d taught her to steal. And a lot of cats.

The closest she had to a living human relative was probably Catman. There’d been a time when they’d been something like family, ridiculous as it sounds. They’d been drawn together by their similar code-names, but in the five years they’d worked together, they’d come to form something like a sibling relationship, or least what Selina imagines a sibling relationship would be like.

They’d fallen out in the end, she can’t even remember what about, and gone their separate ways, but she still misses him. It had been good to have someone watching her back like that. Of course Bruce watches out for her in his own idiosyncratic way, but with Thomas she’d always known exactly where she stood. She knew what he wanted from her, whether that was money or mostly metaphorical belly scratches. Even when they’d grown close, it had been simple. They were different kinds of cats, he was a pack animal at heart while she had more of the proud indifference of the housecat, but they recognised one another as an ally, a source of safety and affection, and that had been enough.

It had surprised her when Harley suggested calling in the Secret Six, and excited her more than she’d let on. Whatever it was they’d fallen out about would hardly be more important than bringing down Superman, and it would be nice to work with Thomas again. (Plus she wanted to see if the rumours about him and Deadshot where true. He’d always had ridiculous taste in men and she had a big sisters insatiable curiosity about his romantic life).

“How’s it going, Catwoman?” a chirpy voice says in her ear, breaking her out of her contemplation.

“Harley,” Selina says. “Did you want someone?”

“Just checking up on you,” Harley assures her. “And I was wondering. Who are we actually breaking out?”

“Bruce said Riddler and Penguin,” Selina says, resigned. Harley had been at the meeting, but it’s just like her not to have been paying attention.

“Well yeah, but since when do we take orders from Batman?” Harley demandes. “I vote we break out Ivy.”

Selina sighs. “This is an important mission Harley, not a chance to reunite you with your girlfriend.”

“But she’s been in there so long,” Harley says, and Selina can hear her pouting. “And I bet Superman hasn’t given her any plants or anything. She must be so lonely!”

Selina is sure Ivy is absolutely fine, she’s known the woman for years and she is tough as reinforced concrete, but she also knows there’s no point telling Harley that. The two of them are almost comically protective of one another, especially Harley.

Her abiding memory from the many times the three of them had teamed up is of the two of them making goo goo eyes at one another. Harley worships Ivy and while Ivy mostly treats Harley with the wearing fondness of the owner of a cute but untrainable puppy, she doesn’t doubt Ivy loves Harley too.

Whether they’re actually together however is a mystery for the ages. They’re certainly close (she’s walked in on them sharing a bed more than once over the years) but until now there’s always been the Joker keeping them apart. Since then there’s been the war. She will admit to being a bit intrigued as to how their relationship will play out now there’s nothing keeping them apart, whether they’ll finally actually make it official, or whether it will all fall apart.

“If you can come up a good reason, and by good reason I mean one which Bruce will accept, for why we need to break her out, we’ll do it,” Selina decrees. In reality it’s unlikely that even Harley’s most convincing argument will be one Bruce will accept, he has a particular loathing for Ivy (probably because so many of her toxins are some form of sex pollen, something Bruce, with his complete lack of interest in sex, is even more uncomfortable with than Joker toxin).

“Okay, let me think. Hmmm.”

Selina adjusts her position again and mentally measures the distance between the top of the wall and the razor wire while she waits to see if Harley will actually come up with anything.

“Ooooh, I got it!”

“Alright, hit me.” This should be good.

“We don’t break her out. I couldn’t think of any reason for that, but we take her a plant or three. And then when we need a distraction, we just tell Ivy and bam, mass Arkham breakout. Tailor made Supes distraction.”

“That’s… actually a pretty good idea. I think even Bruce would agree with that. Okay, we’ll do it. You get the plants and we’ll drop them off on our way through. According to the plans female and male high security are pretty close together, it shouldn’t be too much of a trek.”

“Awesome!” It’s nice to hear Harley so happy. Everyone’s so gloomy all the time at the tower, it makes a pleasant change. “Hey, you need me to keep you company some?”

“I’m good. I work best on my own.”

“Awesome. I promised Rose I’d play with her. Catch ya’ later Kitty Cat.”

There’s a slightly buzz of static as Harley switches off her com, and then silence. Selina relaxes, just a little. It’s not that she doesn’t like Harley, but she’s not used to having any kind of company on jobs like this, and the silence makes her feel like she’s on familiar ground again.

Bruce will want to be involved in the actual planning, control freak that he is, but she can already feel the shape of the break in in her mind, too many years in the business not to start planning how to break in the moment she looks at somewhere like this.

Far below, the shift changes. It’s sloppily done, she can see that even from here. The guard going off duty doesn’t even speak to his replacement, no information changing hands and obviously the staff don’t know one another well. That could be useful.

Who else has Superman got in here? Harley’s suggestion has got her thinking. Obviously Bruce wants to limit how many villains they let free, but Selina’s never worried much about definitions like hero and villain. Batman is a hero, Joker was a villain, everything in between is shades of grey, and if there are people who could help end the war, she doesn’t much care whether they’re good or bad.

Ivy, Oswald, Eddie… people like Doodlebug and Magpie aren’t going to be any use to them. Jane Doe is too unreliable, and Humpty Dumpty too stupid. Shark is no use outside prison walls. Jonathan… Jonathan. Now there’s an idea.

The coms are a closed loop, just the unit she’s wearing and the one Harley has, but that’s okay. In the Tower of Fate you’re never far from a Bat.

She taps the small earpiece gently to activate it, hoping Harley’s still listening, and says, “Hello? Harley?”

There’s a pause, and then a voice replies, not Harley’s but Rose Constantine’s. “Hello Selina. Harley left this here when she went to the bathroom.”

“Okay, well do you know where Batman is? Or Tim? I need to speak to one of them.”

“Tim’s next door, but I think he’s asleep. I can find Batman for you though, if you like?”

“That would be great kitten, thank you.”

“Okay. I think he’s downstairs arguing with my dad. I’ll go and see.”

There’s a loud scraping noise, which Selina thinks is Rose putting the com in her pocket, and then silence.

While she waits, Selina opens her lunch bag. Inside, wrapped in paper, are four neatly cut sandwiches, roast chicken from the smell, a slice of cake and an apple. She takes out the apple, carefully rewrapping the sandwiches for later, and takes a bite.

It’s good, crunchy and sour. She’s far enough away from any potential observers that she doesn’t have to worry about the noise it makes when she bites into it. She wouldn’t normally eat on a job, but she could hardly refuse when Alfred had gone to the trouble of making it for her, and passes the time on what promises to be a truly dull stakeout.  
Stakeouts, memorising routines and learning blind spots, are an important part of her job, but if there’s one thing she’s learned in her years on the planet, it’s that they never get less boring. It’s as though she has to do these hours of mind-numbing waiting in order to pay for the adrenaline high she gets from the actual theft.

She takes another bite, eyes still fixed on the guards, and then has to stop and spit out a pip she’s eaten by accident. Annoyed, she turns the apple of begins on the other side, this time paying attention to what she’s eating as well as to the building opposite.

She’s just finished, and is weighing up the benefits of throwing the core over the edge of the roof vs taking it home with her, when her com crackles back to life, Bruce’s voice cool and professional in her ear.

“Selina.”

“What were you arguing with John about this time?” she asks, throwing the core into a trash can on the street below.

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.” Bruce sounds annoyed and also a little embarrassed.

“You finally figured out it was him drinking you whiskey then?” Selina asks, amused. “Feeling bad you didn’t work it out earlier? Maybe you’re getting old, darling, losing your touch…”

“What do you want Selina,” Bruce growls, and Selina smirks to herself. She loves winding him up, and it’s so easy. He watches himself so closely all the time, and it pleases her to make him loose a tiny bit of that control.

“Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice, lover?” she teases, and she can imagine the slight flush that will be creeping up under the edge of the cowl. He pretends to be a man of the world, but she can have him blushing like a school girl with only a few words.

“Selina…”

“Oh alright. You’re no fun sometimes darling. I wanted to ask you how yellow lanterns work.”

There’s silence on the other end, a sure sign that Bruce feels he needs more information before he can answer her. Why he can’t just say so like a normal person, she has no idea.

“I mean, I know they’re powered by fear, but is it their own or other peoples?”

“Both. Either. It varies from individual to individual. As long as there’s fear, the rings work.”

“Okay. Then I have a name to add to our list of rescues. Scarecrow.”

“Making people more scared isn’t going to help.”

“No, but what he studies, studied rather, is removing fear. Curing it. If anyone can help us defeat the yellow lanterns it’s him. Plus he’ll cooperate. As long as you give him a lab and lots of chemicals to play with, he’s really no trouble. We can use him, Bruce.”

There’s a long moment of silence from the other end, and then Bruce says grudgingly, “Alright. But Fate isn’t going to like it. The Tower is getting full.”

“The Tower is theoretically infinite,” Selina tells him. (She’d heard John and Zee discussing it). “There’s plenty of room. Fate can make him a lab down in the basement with the prisoners.”

“I don’t like it,” Bruce mutters, sounding every bit as petulant as Jason.

“No, beloved, but you don’t like anything. Where would we be if Batman started being reasonable, and liking things like a normal person?”

“Good night Selina.”

Selina chuckles as the connection dies. There are moments when you really could tell Bruce went to private school. He’d easily forgive any violence against himself, indeed in the case of Batgirl it was how they communicated, but tease him and he turned into a sulky teenager. Clearly not bullied enough at school. He doesn’t know how to deal with mockery of any kind. It’s sort of sweet, the way finding hints of humanity in Batman always is.

She adjusts her position minutely, just enough to keep her legs from cramping up, and opens the neat paper packet of sandwiches, and settles in for a long night.


	2. Chapter Two: The Supervillain's Guide to Flirting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a fair chunk of stuff about Klarion in this one. I felt like he didn't get enough explanation in the comics, considering he's a pretty obscure character, so for those who don't know, the Witchmen (and women) are a society of quasi-demonic humans, descended from the original Rowanoak settlers. They live in a settlement called Limbo Town, deep bellow New York, and have a weird slightly satanic strictly religious society which is based on using their dead relatives as slave labour in gem mines. These zombies are called, for reasons known only to the authors of Seven Soldiers, Grundies. It's implied they trade the gems with people from the 'blue rafters' (surface) for food, but the elders of their society staunchly deny the existence of any surface world, to the point where claiming it exists can get you burned at the stake for herasy. Witchmen have animal familiars called draagas. They can see through the eyes of their draagas, and in some cases can fuse with them to form monsterous 'Horigals'. It's likely, but not certain, that Witchmen need to be close to their draagas to live.
> 
> Yes the line near the end does mean the Secret Six are going to appear eventually, though probably not in this story. I'm kinda terrified about it, since 'Doll is both one of my all time favourite characters, and just about the all time hardest person to write ever.
> 
> Also Poison Quinn shippers don't worry, John's presence in Harley's life doesn't mean I've forgotten about her best girl. I'm just making everyone poly, because I can.
> 
> Finally credit to HaHaHarley for the idea of Jonathan being one of Harley's lecturers. I couldn't resist stealing it.

Harley has a routine. She’s never had a routine before, or rather, Dr Harleen had had a routine, but in several fundamental ways she’s not that woman anymore, so having a schedule of places she needs to be each day feels new and strange.

On Monday morning, at 9.25 sharp (punctuality matters to Tim) she spends an hour with Tim talking about all the ways being completely reliant on someone (even someone as caring as Jason) can mess up a control freak like him. They skirt awkwardly around the subject of Metropolis, because the last thing Tim needs, after three years without choices, is for Harley to push him to talk when he’s not ready.

Tuesdays she spends an hour with Jason, carefully timed to coincide with one of Tim’s naps so that there’s no chance that he’ll overhear what’s being said five rooms away. They talk about death and neglect and responsibility and abuse and murder, and even the pit-madness, which Harley isn’t remotely qualified to advise on. It’s slow going and emotionally draining (it’s impossible to keep a proper professional distance when she lives with him, sees him every day, likes him) but Jason is making progress, and she’d forgotten how good that feels.

Wednesday she has tea and cake with Alfred in the afternoon, and they talk about the people in the tower, and especially Bruce and his children. It’s not a session, more like information gathering, but she tries to do what she can to help Alfred all the same. The old man has been through hell and back the last few years, and she suspects Bruce doesn’t always remember that.

Thursdays Oracle opens up a Skype link, and they talk about disability and stigma and loss and how bloody frustrating Bruce can be, and it’s a session, but it’s also not. Babs is clever, in some ways cleverer than Bruce, and she has a knack of turning the session round on Harley, getting her to talk about her own issues. It’s unprofessional, but cathartic.

Fridays is her scheduled play date with Rose. They spend a lot of time together anyway, but Fridays she makes sure always to spend a few hours with her. They play with Merlin, and dress up in Selina and Zee’s clothes, and Harley very gently pushes the subject of Rose’s mom, and how she’s adjusting to John, and John and Zee’s relationship, and the war, and anything else she thinks Rose needs to talk about. It’s not as emotionally draining as her time with Jason, but still tiring. She adores Rose, and hates knowing that there’s only so much she can do to help. She wants to gather the girl up in a hug and magic everything better, but she knows it doesn’t work like that. Rose needs time, and Superman’s defeat, and the support of her new family, and none of those are things Harley can give her.

(Fridays make her miss Lucy horribly, but sometimes she tells Rose stories about her, and it makes her feel a little better to be able to be open with someone about being a mother, even if she hasn’t got to actually raise her daughter.)

Saturday she has what she mentally calls open session time. She makes sure to spend the day somewhere easily accessible like the kitchen, making herself available to anyone who needs propping up. She’s surprised how many of them actually take her up on the implied offer. Zatanna often spends some time with her, talking about John and her father. Selina has come to talk unconventional relationships. Klarion sometimes spends the time quizzing her on the surface world (which he poetically calls ‘Blue Rafters’) and acceptable behaviours. Even Bruce has come and spoken to her once, stiff halting words about loss and fatherhood.

Sundays are Harley time (strictly Harley, no Harleens allowed, though the further she gets from the Joker, the harder it gets to separate the two identities).

She’d spent the morning of this particular Sunday curled up in bed feeling sorry for herself, and missing the Joker, and then being angry that she missed him, which only made her miss him more. He had been bad for her, intellectually she knows that, but he’d also given her things she hadn’t even know she needed. She still isn’t sure how she feels about the years she spent as his punching bag, because they were unhealthy and dangerous and often miserable, but she’d stayed by choice. He wouldn’t have chased her if she left, not for long. He wasn’t capable of thinking about her for that kind of length of time. But he’d given her choices and freedom she didn’t even realise she hadn’t had, and despite everything, she’d loved him.

Zatanna had come to fetch her at lunch time, chivvy her up out of bed and into the shower and clean clothes. Instincts honed over years of super villainy made her flinch from crying in front of people, but Zatanna acted like she didn’t even see it, just talking cheerfully about Rose and food and innocuous things while Harley dressed, making it clear she wasn’t leaving without her, without becoming overbearing.

Lunch helped, good food and being forced to be around people, especially John. He had a conman’s knack for reading people, and saw at once she needed distraction. He sat beside her at the dinner table and told stories that had her first chuckling, then giggling, then laughing loud and long and hard, until her sides ached with it and she felt washed clean of her earlier melancholy.

She doesn’t know if it’s something inherent in her, or something else she owes to the Joker, this ability to bounce back from any fall. She hadn’t had much of a chance to find out before Joker. Her life hadn’t been easy exactly, but it had been mostly free from the kind of major traumas and tragedies which are now her everyday. Either way she’s found herself to be as emotionally resilient as a rubber ball, a useful trait for both a super villain and a psychiatrist, so by the afternoon her earlier low mood is forgotten.

The afternoon is spent with John, strategising. John’s a schemer right down to his boots, and she suspects most of it goes on in his head, but out of politeness he’s actually writing things down, allowing her a little glimpse into his mind.

She’s perched on the arm of his chair, a strange mirror to all the times she’d sat like this while Joker planned mayhem and destruction, and she has to force herself not to flinch when John moves, but she knows this is good for her, breaking down all the negative associations she has of this kind of closeness with a man and replacing it with positive ones. John would never physically hurt her, would never deliberately hurt her emotionally, and she’s certain enough of that to make pushing down her old instincts easy enough.

They’ve got a big piece of paper (pink, because that was what Rose had provided when asked for large plain paper) and a black felt-tip which John is using to draw out a kind of complicated web of heroes and villains, illustrating which of the insurgency would be effective against which of the villains.

Various members of the Insurgency have popped in to see what they are doing, and add their own suggestions. Harley’s been able to make a few suggestions of her own, thanks to her encyclopaedic knowledge of Gotham’s underworld, and there’s already a second piece of paper with the names of people they need to try and recruit balanced on her knee.  
It’s good to feel useful, and more than that, it’s good to be listened too. People listen to Dr Quinzel, often reluctantly, but no one usually listens to Harley. It’s like putting the makeup on somehow makes her less important, less human, and even though her face is clean today, it still feels good to be listened to as Harley.

It feels good too to be so close to Constantine. She’s made no secret of her crush on him (Rose thinks it’s sickening but hilarious) but she still isn’t certain if its reciprocated. He strikes her as the sort of man who flirts as easily as he breathes, and she doesn’t know if Zee’s lack of reaction is a sign that they’re not exclusive, or that it means nothing.  
Constantine’s hand is warm on her knee, and she doesn’t quite know how to react. It’s been so long, she’s forgotten everything she used to know about normal flirting and relationships. She likes having his hand on her knee, but she doesn’t know what the correct response is. Should she touch him in return in some way? Say something about it? Kiss him? Is this another gesture of friendship she’s forgotten, or does it mean what her body wants it to mean?

“Is that a list of our enemies?” a voice asks, so close behind Harley that she actually reaches instinctively for the gun she’s not wearing.

“How long you been there?” she asks, turning as best she can to face the pale blue figure behind her.

“Oh ages,” Klarion says, smiling his creepy smile. On his shoulder Teelk stretches luxuriously, showing off unnaturally long claws. “Is this a list of our enemies?”

“Yeah,” Constantine says. He hadn’t even started when the kid spoke. Harley wonders if he’d known all along that he was there. “You got anything helpful to suggest?”

“Perhaps. I did not know Superman was a necromancer,” Klarion says, coming round to peer interestedly at the paper.

“He isn’t. He’s just about the least magical being in the solar system,” John says, frowning.

“But he has a Grundy,” Klarion says, sounding confused. “How did he raise it without magic?”

“You mean old Solomon?” Harley asks, intrigued. “Supes didn’t raise him. According to the stories he was raised up by workers draining the swamp lands for the city’s founders. They made him outa all the bodies that had been dumped in slaughter swamp, and the soil of Gotham itself. He’s been around for hundreds of years.”

Klarion frowned. “Then who controls him? A Grundy once raised must be controlled.”

“A Grundy, among the Witchmen, is one of the zombie slaves you use in the mines, right?” Constantine asked.

Klarion nodded. “All Witchmen must serve their time in the mines after death. That is how Limbo sustains itself.”

“Well by all accounts this guy’s name really is Grundy,” Harley says. “So maybe he’s the first. The prototype. He certainly doesn’t need anyone controlling him.”

“But you could,” Constantine says slowly. “Right? Even if the magic animating him is older, you could take control of him?”

Klarion looks surprised. “Of course! I was the best in my class at necromancy. I was allowed to raise my father, even though I was not yet a man.”

Harley’s first mad thought is that she could write one hell of a paper on Witchman society and its relationship with death. Then she remembers she’s a super villain now and none of the reputable journals will publish her.

“You people are creepy as hell,” Constantine says, leaning forward to add Klarion’s name to his list, linking it with a line to that of Solomon Grundy. “And I say that as someone who’s actually been to hell.”

“I try my best,” Klarion replied, grinning. He had the oddest smile Harley had ever seen. It was genuine, but it stretched out his face like he’d been Joker gassed, never quite reaching his eyes which remained detached, watching everything with a mischievous interest.

“You got anything else to add?” John asks, a little sharply. Klarion just turns to grin at him and leaves, presumably in search of someone else to creep the hell out of.

John shakes his head. “I swear, every moment I spend with that boy makes me glad the rest of the Witchmen never leave Limbo Town.”

Harley giggles. “I thought you were supposed to be good at dealing with creepy stuff.”

“Uncanny I can do. Supernatural, no problem. Hell I’ve faced down things which literally drive those who look at them insane. But there is something just plain not right about Witchmen.”

Harley laughs softly. “I know what you mean. Like Teekl. What is that thing? Because it is definitely not a cat.”

“The proper term for it is a draaga. It means something like familiar. The Witchmen I’ve met claim they’re normal animals, but I once met someone whose draaga was a dragon, so I’m pretty sure that’s not true. But Witchmen are secretive, and if they can get away with lying to surface dwellers they usually will.”

“So how did you end up knowing Klarion?”

John shrugs. “There’s a limited number of mystical con-men in the world. Eventually it’s inevitable that we all meet one another. Although Klarion tends to trade for souls rather than money, so we’re generally not in competition.”

Harley turns to stare in fascinated horror after the retreating boy. “He steals people’s souls?”

“There’s not really any such thing as good magic, but if there was, Witchman magic would be the opposite of it.”

“Thank god he doesn’t sleep in the tower! I’d never sleep a wink.”

John laughs. “I’m sure he’d be flattered to hear that. He takes his creepy reputation very seriously.”

“Speaking of creepy,” Harley says excitedly, “Did you hear the news?”

“I’ve heard a lot of news, but none that would have you so excited, not unless you’re really into totalitarian dictatorships.”

She punches him (gently, because while he’s magically powerful, compared to her he’s about as physically strong as a kitten). “I meant about our rescue mission. Selina got Batman to agree to us rescuing Jonathan!”

“I’m not actually on a first name basis with Gotham’s super villain’s,” John reminds her with a smile.

“Ass. Scarecrow. We’re rescuing Scarecrow. Fate is making him a lab in the basement.”

John looks slightly alarmed. “And that’s a good thing?”

“Yes! He was one of my lecturers, back in college. He’s a friend, in as much as Jonathan is capable of having friends.”

“Well, so long as he leaves Rosie alone, I’m pleased for you.”

Harley laughs. “He’s not especially interested in children. Actually, I think it’s more that he has no idea how to deal with them, so he avoids them. Mosta the big name Gotham villains were like that. They’d happily slaughter adults, but show them a kid and they panic. The only child most of them ever dealt with was Robin.”

“As long as he thinks Rose could knock him unconscious without breaking a sweat, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

Harley can’t help grinning at the mental image of her reserved awkward sort of friend being confronted with frank friendly Rose Constantine. It sounds like the set up for a sitcom.  
“I’ve been teaching her how to deal with Super villains,” Harley reassures him. “Anyone touches her, she knows to hit them in the nose and yell for a Bat. She’ll be fine. I’d be more worried about Jonathan. He’s really very shy.”

John shakes his head, amused. “At least he’s the only one actually coming back to the tower. Isn’t he? Oh fuck, you’re not planning on bringing Penguin back here are you?!”

Harley laughs. “No, Ozzie and Eddie can be trusted to look after themselves. I’m sure they’ll both have Supes proof bunkers by now. Plus no one should have to live with Eddie. I mean, Pengy’s bad enough, but Eddie…” She shudders at the memory of that one awful week when Riddler and Joker had shared a base. It had been the longest week of her life. How J could like the guy (in as much as J had been capable of liking anyone) she would never understand.

“Any other super villains you feel like inviting to move in?” John asks, somewhere between amused and sarcastic. “It’ll be standing room only at this rate.”

“Well, I’ve had Oracle send a message to the Secret Six,” Harley offers brightly.

There’s a moment of silence, and then Constantine’s memory must throw up a card, because he winces. “Bane? You want me to share houseroom with Bane?!”

“Oh, Bane’s alright,” Harley said, grinning wickedly. “Even cleans up after himself. It’s Ragdoll you have to watch out for.”

“That’s it,” Constantine declares melodramatically. “I’m taking Rose and Zee and we’re moving out. I’m sure my old flat will still be available. Or maybe Chas will put us up.”

Harley laughs so hard at his outraged expression that she nearly topples of the arm of the chair, only stopped by his arm, warm and strong around her waist.

“Careful, love,” he says, his voice, low and soft against her ear, making her shiver. “Nearly took a tumble there.”

“My hero,” she says, turning to face him. That leaves their faces only scanted centimetres apart, so that she can feels his breath on her lips. His eyes search her, warm and concerned, and she thinks he’s waiting for her permission before kissing her.

She’s just about to lean in, press her lips to his, when the door slams open.

“Put him down and suit up,” Selina says. “Supes is transferring the prisoners. We’ve got to move, now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are love x


	3. Chapter Three: Reuinions

It’s been two years, ten months and six days since Tim last ran coms on a mission, and he’s freaking out a little bit.

He’s not alone, Babs is with him, manipulating security cameras and alarm systems from her high tower, but if anything that makes it more intimidating. He admires Babs so much, looks up to her, and he wants desperately for her to think highly of him.

Harley and Selina left twenty minutes ago, Harley shoving one of the headsets at him with a curt, “it’s you or Bruce, and you’re my favourite”, before Zatanna’s magic had whisked them away to Gotham City. (He misses the city so much, a constant ache in his heart almost as fierce as the ache left behind by Dick. Gotham is a part of him and he’s a part of Gotham and being away from her for so long feels unnatural. He wonders how Bruce manages it.)

He’s got a laptop, one of Waynetech’s best, propped up on his knees, Babs feeding him footage from any cameras Selina and Harley pass, which means mostly the screen is blank. Babs has control of all the feeds, but Selina is a professional and Tim never catches more than a flicker of movement as she passes.

Getting over the outer wall had been simple, Selina taking out the guards without breaking stride and Babs splicing old footage into the camera feeds to hide her. It had come as a surprise to Tim how easily Harley had made the climb, scrambling up the wall less elegantly than Selina, but not much slower. It’s so easy to forget than for all her bright clothes and loud voice, Harley has been running heists since before Tim knew Batman’s identity. She may choose to disguise it, but she’s every bit the professional Selina is.

The two women’s long history together is serving them well now. They and Ivy have teamed up pretty regularly over the years, and it shows in the effortless coordination of their movements. Tim might have an ear full of their constant bickering, but they move in perfect sync.

The camera feed on his screen changes, showing the corridor splitting into two, each unlabeled.

“Alright kid,” Harley says, her usually strident voice soft, “do your thing. Which way?”

Tim brings up the blueprints Babs had taken from the Gotham City planning department, and makes a quick guess. The wings aren’t labelled, but he can read a lot from the location of the wiring and pipes, and the thickness of the walls.

“Left,” he says, keeping his voice low. “Walls that thick, plus a light well, that’s got to be Ivy’s cell.”

“Well at least they’re giving my poor buttercup some sunshine,” Harley says mournfully. “Kitty Cat, you sure we can’t…”

“Just the plant, Harles, like we agreed,” Selina hisses, but she sounds sympathetic. Tim wonders how Harley’s so calm about this. If it was Jason locked away…

He takes a deep breath, forces his heart rate down. His instinctual panic at being separated from Jason is something he and Harley are working on in their sessions, but it’s slow going. Nearly three years of total reliance have left their mark on his psyche.

The women take his advice, following the left-hand corridor, and after a few moments of silence they come out into an area where even Selina can’t hide from the cameras.

Cells line the walls, familiar faces staring out. The glass is one way, reflective on the inside, and the each cell is soundproofed, leaving every inmate totally isolated, trapped with their own thoughts for months or years on end. Just the sight of it makes Tim want to punch something as he remembers all the names on the list of patients Superman had taken from Arkham Asylum. People like Zsaz and Jane Doe would never be reformed, they were untreatable. But innocent souls like Humphrey Dumpler, Junkyard Dog and Jean Loring, people driven to breaking point by the world, but not intentionally evil, they were locked up in there as well, left to rot instead of being given the treatment they needed.

The women’s high security section is small, only six cells, and two of them are unoccupied. Jane Doe, Lady Clayface and Vanity have three adjoining cells, which has to admit is funny, in a dark sort of way (Harley certainly thinks so, stuffing a whole fist into her mouth to keep from laughing too loudly at the sight). Opposite them Cheetah prowls her cell, tail flicking and claws flexing. She looks like a caged Panther, and despite all the people she’s killed, Tim can’t help feeling sorry for her. She so clearly wasn’t made to be trapped.  
At the end of the corridor is a seventh door, a huge steel security door, requiring an ID card and a numerical code. Before Tim or Babs can begin to try and hack it, Selina produces a key card stolen from an unconscious guard, and a pocket black light.

“Hold this,” Selina says, handing the tiny torch to Harley. 

Without being told, Harley shines it on the keypad. Selina swipes the card, then using the finger prints visible under the black light as a guide, enters the code.

The door slides back to reveal a dark opening beyond, too little light for the cameras to pick anything up, but Tim hears the voice, weak and confused and hopeful and nothing like Tim’s ever heard Ivy sound before.

“Harley?”

Harley squeals loud enough to make Tim wince and rushes into the dark room to embrace her… friend. Tim considers shutting off his coms for a moment, allowing them some privacy, but the mission is too important. He can only imagine Bruce’s reaction if he were to find out Tim had jeopardized the plan like that.

“Ivy, buttercup, are you okay? Did they hurt ya? Oh you poor thing, you’re all wilted! Y’want for me to go back n kill somma ‘em for ya?”

Ivy laughs, a weak thing, but still there. “I’m okay Harles. God, I’ve missed you nut-bucket. Are you okay?”

“I’m just peachy now I’m seeing you again,” Harley declares. “Only, oh Ivy honey, we’re not here to rescue you. Not exactly.”

Tim doesn’t need to be able to see Ivy to know the way she will have stiffened at that, withdrawn back into her usual hard shell. “I see.” Her voice is icy.

“Batman is watching,” Selina says. “I’m sorry Ivy, but he’s calling the shots on this one. But Harley has a little something for you.”

There’s the sound of a zip, and a rustle, and then Ivy gasps in delight. “Oh, Harley, it’s beautiful!”

“I did lotsa research,” Harley says proudly. “They said it doesn’t need much water, and it doesn’t mind shade, so it should be alright in here, I hope.”

There’s the smacking sound of a kiss, and then Ivy says, “And you said you weren’t getting me out of here! The things I can do with this little one…”

“Wait for our signal,” Selina says firmly. “We’re fighting a war out there, and some day soon we’re going to need a distraction, something that will worry Supes enough that he takes his eye off us.”

“So that’s why…” Ivy sounds a little hurt, but she’s nothing if not practical. “Well, as long as you don’t leave it too long, I suppose I can wait.”

“I’m sorry honey,” Harley says, sounding shamefaced. “I woulda taken you outa hear if I could, you know I would. But the war…”

“Oh hush silly, of course I know.” The cameras give Tim an excellent view of Selina’s expression, which tells him everything he needs to know about what’s going on in the cell, out of sight. It amuses him no end to see that she and Bruce have nearly identical “oh god public displays of affection” faces. It’s the same one Bruce wears whenever he sees Tim and Jason hug (which is ridiculous because they aren’t even together. Tim is just Jason’s annoying hero worshipping little brother, and he’s realistic enough to know that that’s all he’ll ever be, however much he might wish otherwise.) “Superman needs to be stopped, and I wouldn’t trust any of those so called heroes to do it. Now you go and save the world, and me and this little one will wait for your word, okay?”

“Okay Ivy.” Harley’s crying, or trying very hard not to. Tim can hear the tremors in her voice. “You stay safe, ya hear me? I’m coming back for you just as soon as I can, I promise.”

“I know Harley. I trust you. Now you and Selina go and do whatever it is you broke in here to do. I’ll see you soon.”

There’s the sound of another kiss, and then Harley emerges from the cell, her eyes full of tears and her bottom lip wobbling.

Selina presses the button that sends the door sliding home, and the minute it’s fully closed, Harley just collapses into Selina’s arms, bawling like a child.

Tim looks away as Selina rocks and shushes her sometime friend. Hearing Harley and Ivy’s conversation had been one thing, but this moment is too personal. It isn’t something Harley would want him seeing.

Eventually Selina asks Harley softly if she’s okay, and Harley makes a soggy sort of noise that’s presumably agreement.

“Alright Boy Wonder,” Selina says, and there’s a catch in her voice that suggests she isn’t unaffected by Harley’s grief. “Where now?”

“Up and over,” Tim says, and winces as the words come out too bright and loud. “There’s an air duct above you. It links to the male high security wing. You see it?”

Selina looks up and nods. “I see it. Oracle, any tech we need to worry about?”

“There’s motion detectors in the vents, which I guarantee wasn’t Superman’s idea, because it’s actually very hard to circumvent,” Babs says, calm and competent and infinitely reassuring. Tim wants to be as professional as Babs when he grows up. “I can’t fool them, but I’ve written an algorithm that will stop them connecting to the alarms for… well, I don’t know how long actually, it depends on how awake the guys in charge of the system are, but it’s not far. Hopefully it’ll be long enough for you to get to the male wing.”

“And when we’re there?”

“Cameras. Cameras everywhere. You’re going to have to be quick. No one noticed me cutting the feed in the female wing, because frankly Ivy’s the only one of those guys who’s considered a serious escape risk. The other side is another matter. There’s some big names in there, and the guards will be watching. I won’t be able to cut the feeds, but I’ll try and manipulate the cameras movements to give you long enough to slip by. How long will it take you to open the cell doors?”

Selina shrugged. “A minute. Maybe a little more if they’re more complex than Ivy’s. You said there’s no biometrics?”

“Not on the cell doors. But the cells scan the prisoners. If they leave without the system being told, we’ll have a problem.”

Harley shifted on her feet. “We’re not exactly going to be able to move quickly when we’ve got Pengy with us.”

“Which is why I’ve told the system that the prisoner transfer is today for the three you’re getting out. It should be foolproof. But they’ve got Cyborg working on their systems, so that’s no guarantee.”

“And once we’ve got them? I wouldn’t trust those three to break out of a wet paper bag, let along get out of this place undetected,” Selina says, voice scathing, and Tim can’t help being amused. He’s always been a little fascinated by the relationships between the Arkhamites, the strange fondness they seem to have for one another, and Selina sounds like an irritated big sister right now. (Not that Cass ever uses that tone, but despite being six months younger than him, Steph has it down perfectly.)

“We should have had all this worked out in advance,” Babs says, frustrated. “Bloody Superman changing all our plans! Once you’ve got them, Tim will direct you out down one of the service routes. I’m going to have my hands full keeping the cameras off you. I can’t guarantee you won’t have to fight your way out.”

“Well that’s why I’m here,” Harley says, already sounding nearly back to her usual self. “Selina’s the brains, I’m the muscle.”

“And the super villain wrangler,” Selina says, sounding amused. “You know I can’t bear any of these three, and you’ve always got on pretty well with them.”

“I want to beat Eddies head against the floor until he stops moving,” Harley says conversationally as Selina leaps elegantly up to the ceiling to begin removing the vent cover. “And if Pengy touches me I’ll break his hands.”

“Yes dear, but everyone wants to beat Eddie to death. It’s a side effect of his smugness. And at least you’ve never broken any of Oswald’s fingers.”

Tim can’t help the small laugh that escapes him. “It’s good to know it isn’t only us Bats who find Riddler annoying.”

“Everyone finds Riddler annoying,” Babs says, with a certain heartfelt certainty. “He’s an insufferable little shit.”

Harley snorts with laughter. “Aren’t you Bats supposed to be all sympathetic and understanding of us criminal types?” she asks, tone teasing.

“I’m not a Bat,” Babs says firmly, “I’m Oracle. And I’m perfectly at liberty to be annoyed by Riddler.”

Selina disappears into the vent, the cover falling to the ground with a thump, narrowly missing Harley who nearly jumps out of her skin.

“Guess that’s my signal to get going,” she says, and jumps.

Tim’s used to Selina being able to do things which look physically impossible (and he has to push down a memory of Dick and Selina racing each other over the rooftops, competing to perform the most ridiculous feats of acrobatics, Selina laughing high and free in a way Tim had never heard before) but he forgets that Harley was a champion gymnast before she was a psychiatrist. It’s impossible to forget it now, as she executes a neat flip, her fingers catching the edge of the vent, muscles in her arms bulging as she pulls herself up.

Tim loses sight of them while they’re in the vents, no camera feeds to tap into, but he can hear Harley muttering to herself, complaining about the tight space and the sharp edges of the bolts. Tim knows that feeling all too well, crawling through tiny spaces as the skin is scraped away from your hands and knees, unable to do anything but grit your teeth and keep going.

It’s not until he hears the quiet thump of feet as they emerge the other side that he realises he’s been holding his breath.

The camera feed on his laptop switching, and he catches movement as one of the women, Harley from the colours, disappears out of shot.

The next few minutes are a tense dance, Babs snapping terse directions as she manipulates the cameras into leaving blind spots large enough for the two woman to slip into. Several times Tim catches a glimpse of one of them, Harley’s hair, one of the Selina’s hands, but he never gets a clear look at either of them, and he can’t help being a little awed. It’s easy to forget, now he lives with them and has seen Harley’s rainbow patterned pyjamas and the way Selina always manages to drop crumbs down her cleavage when she’s eating, that they’re both criminals, and damn good ones.

The camera feed on his laptop switches automatically as Babs jumps between them, checking lines of sight and angles, but it eventually comes to rest on a cell containing a familiar figure.

Riddler somehow manages to look smug and superior, even wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and without his glasses. Tim wonders just what he’d done to warrant them being taken away. Riddler is usually a model prisoner, apart from the escape attempts, never attacks guards or fellow prisoners, goes along willingly to therapy (even if he then amuses himself by driving his doctors to distraction with him mental gymnastics). Tim has read the files from all his Arkham stays, and not once did he ever try and make a make-shift weapon, especially not out of his glasses.

Babs counts down quietly from three, and on go the screen flickers and then goes back to showing an empty corridor, the only difference being that Riddler is suddenly on the other side of his cell. The date stamp in the corner of the screen is blurred, hard to read, an attempt to hide that fact that this footage is days old.

After one minute and twenty seven seconds (it feels far longer) Harley chirps, “Hello Eddie!” and the footage flicks back to live, showing a now empty cell.

“Hello Harleen. I see you’re still dressing like a whore.”

“And I see you’re still an insufferable prick,” Harley replies, apparently not offended in the least. “Now say thank you to Selina for the rescue and come along quietly, or I’ll knock all your teeth out, alright?”

Tim can’t help the snort of laughter at Harley’s schoolteacher voice. He sees now why Selina has assigned her Super villain wrangling duty.

“I hardly see why I should thank…” Riddler begins, and Harley actually honest to God growls at him. “Thank you Selina.”

“Good boy,” Harley says, and Tim suddenly realised where he knows the tone of voice from, and the growl too. She’s treating Riddler like one of her Hyenas. Jason is going to laugh himself sick when Tim tells him about this later.

Riddler’s cell is only two down from Penguins, so there’s only a minute or two to wait before the feed flickers to last weeks again.

Penguin is a lot louder and a lot less cooperative about being rescued, demanding explanations the moment Selina gets the door open. Wisely, Selina chooses to ignore him and, from the sound of it, drag him bodily from his cell.

“Pengy, this is a rescue,” Harley says in her scolding the hyenas voice. “Me and Selina are gettin' you outa here and if you’ve got a problem with that, then tough.”

Penguin, eternal survivor that he is, has absolutely no problem with that, and says so at some length. The old bird’s always been a creep where women are concerned and listening to his florid and unnecessary compliments, Tim can quite understand Harley’s desire to break the man’s hands.

Scarecrow is further down the hall, and Tim amuses himself during their slow progress (sneaking does not come naturally to Penguin, and Riddler keeps making snide comments about how much better he could be doing Oracle’s job) by naming the villains in the cells they pass.

There’s the Hatter, looking strangely naked with his bulbous head bare, and Great White Shark, Killer Moth and Maxie Zeus. (Tim has always had a secret soft spot for Maxie Zeus, mostly because the man commits crimes while wearing a toga, which is just inherently hilarious). 

Jonathan Crane, when they reach him, is sitting cross legged on his cot, staring straight at the glass at though he can see right through it. It’s a disconcerting sight.

At least he comes willingly enough when Selina opens the door, only uttering a small exclamation of surprise and then following willingly enough. Crane has always been one of the more sensible of the Arkhamites (not that that’s saying much).

Harley’s shriek of delight when she sees him is loud enough to make Tim wince, and is followed by an oomph from Crane that he thinks must mean she’s just glomped him.

“Jonny! I missed you! You don’t look well, have they not been feeding you? Don’t worry, I’m sure Alfred will fatten you up. Why don’t they let you shave? You look ridiculous with stubble.”

“Harley, do stop fussing. And please refrain from calling me Jonny.”

There was another oomph, followed by a noise Tim was sure was the sound of Scarecrow’s ribs creaking as Harley squeezed him. “I knew you’d missed me too!”

“Touching as all this is,” Riddler drawled, in a tone that made Tim suspect he was going to be teasing Scarecrow about this for years to come, “hadn’t we better be getting out of here?”

And that’s when the alarms started.


	4. Chapter Four: Unappreciated Genius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long! Turns out Eddie isn't as easy a character to write as I thought he'd be, and then other projects happened. But this isn't abandoned, I promise.
> 
> Warnings: ableist (references to Jonathan's mental state) and sexist language and ideas (because it's Eddie's POV and he's a massive douchecanoo)

Edward has always had somewhat mixed feelings about his fellow Arkhamites. They are mostly incredibly irritating, but generally marginally less irritating than normal people, and they can usually be counted on to help him when things get difficult.

Oswald is irritating in the extreme, but he at least has to admire the old bird’s knack for survival. He might call himself Penguin, but he’s always reminded Edward more of a rubber duck. The further down he’s pushed, the faster he bobs back up to the surface. Nothing keeps Oswald out of business for long, and banal as the man can be, Edward has to admit a grudging respect for that.

Jonathan he dislikes but understands. Their compulsions run in different veins, but he understands the man’s obsessiveness, and admires his intelligence. If only he wasn’t quite so insane, he might have been considered one of the best scientific minds of their generation.

Harleen he dislikes. She’s easily led, few convictions of her own, which is something he despises. He and Joker had got along well. If they were different people, he might even have called them friends, and Harleen had always been in the way of that, taking Joker’s time and attention with her whining and her bare flesh. (He’d always considered the fact that he allowed himself to be distracted by her to be Joker’s greatest failing.)

Selina on the other hand, he at least respects. She acts like a whore, and is incomprehensively invested in money, but at least she demonstrates some intelligence, and she’s a born survivor.

Two people he tolerates, one he grudgingly respects and one he despises isn’t the best make up for a rescue party, but he was prepared to tolerate them in exchange for a rescue, at least until one of the bumbling fools set off the alarms.

If there is one thing Edward despises, apart from stupidity, it’s running. He is an intellectual, and while his line of work requires him to keep reasonably fit, he doesn’t have a great deal of speed or stamina.

“You know I would have expected even morons like you to have a plan better than this,” Edward pants. Selina and Harley are barely even breathing hard, and even Jonathan is faster than him.

At least Oswald is suffering more. The ridiculous little man has gone bright red, sweat streaming down his face. He really looks quite comical, and Edward takes a vicious pleasure in his suffering.

“Oh, and you’ve got a better idea have you?” Harley demands. “Please, do share with the class.”

“Riddler, we have a plan, so save your breath for running,” Selina says. “Harley, try not to aggravate him. He’s irritating enough as it is without you winding him up.”

“And you plan involves us running away from an enemy who can track us electronically and seal us in the building any time they want?”

“Edward, shut up and run,” Jonathan pants out.

Edward grits his teeth. This is exactly why he despises Harleen. Even people he respects like Jonathan and Selina aren’t immune to her insidious and wholly debateable charms. It’s probably the breasts. He’s never understood the appeal, but they seem to exercise an almost hypnotic effect on lesser minds.

“I was simply observing…” he began, but was cut off by Harley.

“Left ahead,” she barked out, sharp and terse. Really the woman was unconscionably rude.

Jonathan skidded slightly as he turned the corner, soft canvas shoes sliding on the laminate floor. He looks ridiculous, and Edward slows to ensure he doesn’t also make a spectacle of himself. Unfortunately Oswald is right behind him, and doesn’t slow down. He’s sure he hears a bark of laughter as they barrel into the wall. Harleen, no doubt.

“Stop fooling around,” Selina growled as Edward untangled himself from Oswald with as much dignity as possible. “Our window is small.”

“No it isn’t,” Harley says sounding almost hysterical in her manic glee. “It’s huge, look!”

Ahead of them, at the end of the corridor, is a window. It’s large enough to easily admit a man, but covered with a tight metal grill.

“Oh lovely, a dead end.” There are moments when Edward genuinely struggles to comprehend the depths of idiocy his fellow humans are capable of sinking too. “Was this your precious Oracle’s idea?”

“Hey,” Harley said, skidding to a halt in front of the window and turning to face him. “You leave Oracle alone, you misogynistic meanie! They’re your ticket outa here, show some respect!”

To Edward’s surprise it’s Oswald who steps between them, short arms outstretched. “Edward, this is not the time. We’re either about to escape, or be recaptured, but either way we’ll have plenty of time to discus all this later! Allow Harley to do her job!”

Harley picks up a plastic chair from the corridor, hefting it thoughtfully. “You know,” she says, as she widens her stance a little, planting her feet firmly, “this isn’t actually my job.” The chair hits the metal grate with a resounding clang, and then another. “This is more of a hobby.”

When she’s done Edward feels like the ringing in his ears will never stop, and the chair is a pile of broken plastic. Sloppy, unprepared, unnecessarily violent, but that was what he’d come to expect from both Joker and Batman, so it has hardly surprising.

“Who’s going first?” Jonathan asked, surveying the window with wide eyes. He really can be such a coward sometimes.

“I will,” Selina says at once. “But not yet.”

“Must I remind you that heavily armed guards will be coming down that corridor any moment now?” Edward asked, incredulous.

“Oh golly gosh, we’d completely forgotten,” Harley snarled. “What silly little girls we are. Must all the oestrogen, rotting our brains!”

He took a step back, alarmed. The woman was practically feral. All good opinion he had ever had of Batman has been destroyed, knowing he’s working with a literal clown like this.

“Oracle has a plan,” Selina says, not bothering to reign in her attack dog. “Red, call it.”

She’s silent, listening to whatever voice is speaking in her earpiece. Red Robin, apparently. Interesting, since he’s been presumed dead since Metropolis. He files the information away with other snippets that might interest Superman. If this whole Insurgency thing doesn’t work out, he’s going to need something to bargain with.

The wailing of the alarms is unbearably loud, but Edward’s sure he can make out the pounding of feet, no doubt a cohort of prison guards coming to rearrest, or more likely shoot, them.

Still Harley and Selina don’t move, waiting for a command from their masters. He had thought them both too proud to ever bow to the Bat, but he should have known not to place any trust in people like them.

It isn’t until the first footsteps are close enough that Edward’s considering just jumping that Selina moves, leaping out of the window fearlessly.

“Follow one at a time,” Harley says firmly, before she follows. “Anyone who hesitates gets left behind, anyone who doesn’t wait his turn gets dropped, unnerstand?”

Jonathan is the closest to the window. He hesistates for all of a second, clearly debating whether he’s more afraid of the drop or the guards, before Penguin gives him an impatient shove, sending him toppling out into nothing.

He at least has the presence of him not to scream, just letting out a shocked gasp as he falls, and then Edward hears Harley’s voice say cheerfully, “I gotcha Jonny, you’re okay. Down you go.”

Oswald follows a moment later. The man is a fool, but he’s always been a survivor, and clearly he trusts Selina and Harley to catch him. Since there’s no scream or crunch, he’s presumably right.

The first guard appears around the corner as Edward jumps, and a hail of bullets smash the remaining glass sending down onto Edward’s head as he jumps.

He has a brief moment of free fall, and then Selina catches him by the arm, nearly wrenching it out of its socket. She’s perched on a windowsill about half way down the building, some kind of crampon arrangement keeping her anchored.

“Harley will catch you,” she says.

If she’d have allowed him time to speak he’d have pointed out that despite his slenderness he probably weighs double what Harley does, and also that he wouldn’t trust the woman to catch a Frisbee, never mind something as important as him, but Selina doesn’t give him a chance, dropping him into Harley’s waiting arms two stories below.

To his surprise she does catch him, only an oof of effort giving any indication that he weight anything more than the Frisbee of his earlier analogy. 

Selina drops down after him, landing so lightly it’s almost silent. “This way. We can get out through the goods entrance, it’s less heavily guarded.”

She takes off, running quick and quiet, and Penguin groans. “More running,” he complains.

“Not far now,” Harleen says, in a tone that’s probably meant to be encouraging. “Come on Jonny.”

“Don’t call me Jonny,” Jonathan says sharply, but he follows willingly enough, breaking into a light trot to keep up with her.

Penguin waddles after her, and Edward resigns himself to perpetually taking up the rear on this particular escape attempt. He wouldn’t put it past Harleen to be doing it on purpose in an attempt to leave him behind.

At least Batman is finally acknowledging his brilliance.

He hasn’t had much access to the news while he’s been in Blackgate, the cells soundproofed to keep him from overhearing the guards and no access to books or newspapers, but he doesn’t require someone of his intellectual prowess to work out that things aren’t going exactly to plan for Batman’s insurgency. The fact that the Dark Knight of Gotham is lowering himself to working with criminals, and especially criminals of Harleen and Selina's low calibre, suggest there are precious few heroes left on the side of righteousness.

It had annoyed Edward when Superman murdered the Joker. It had been unexpected, unplanned for. He prided himself on always being ten steps ahead of both the heroes, and his fellow rogues. For the whole political landscape to change so dramatically without his having seen it coming was frustrating in extreme. Not that he hadn’t been expecting Superman to snap one day, but he had thought it would take longer, and probably involve more aliens. And he had never truly expected the Joker to die. Even he, with his logic, and intelligence, had fallen into the trap of thinking the clown something more than human. They all had. All of them, except perhaps the Joker himself, had thought the madman would live forever, and it had thrown the whole country's criminal underground into chaos to find him suddenly gone. The dangers of what they all did suddenly seemed that bit closer, that bit more real. They should have been in the stronger position, with Batman busy fighting to his former friend, but instead they panicked, flapping and squawking like chickens when a fox gets into the henhouse, and it had made them easy prey.

That wasn’t going to happen again. With the rest of the rogues either imprisoned, a dead, or working with the Batman, it’s up to Edward and Oswald to rebuild, and much as he dislikes the Penguin, they’re far better candidates than the men and women who had originally founded Gotham’s unique criminal underbelly. Men like Dr. Pain, and Penny Plunderer weren’t exactly architects of crime.

He’s jerked from his reverie by Harleen calling his name impatiently.

“Fall behind and you get left behind,” she says, louder than he thinks is prudent. “The only wanna youse who can’t be replaced is Jonny.”

Impertinent little jezebel! One day, she’s going to get her comeuppance, and Edward dearly wishes that he gets the chance to be there to see it. He almost considers calling the guards and turning himself in, just in the hope that she gets shot. But no, he is the Riddler. He is the cleverest man in Gotham City, and above such pettiness. Besides, who ever first said that revenge is a dish best served cold had known what they were talking about.

They turn the corner of the building, to find a tarmac driveway disappearing down under the ground, like the entrance to an underground car park, except with a guard station, and a yellow and black striped barrier blocking the way.

They huddled together in the shadow of the building, a out of sight of the three heavily armed men, to standing guard, while the third leans back in the guard post chair, his feet on the desk, machine gun resting in his lap.

“Any bright ideas?” Edward asks bitterly. “I suppose it’s too much to hope for that you actually thought your plan to through.”

There is a faint crackle of static as someone speaks into Harleen and Selina ears, presumably Oracle or Red Robin, and Harleen shoves a fist into her mouth to stifle a laugh. Edward doesn’t need to have heard what was said to know that they are mocking him.

Selena plucks a small black device from a pouch on her belt and tosses it towards the guards. It lands at the feet of one of the two standing men. He crouches down to examine it (the man is clearly a moron) and a red LED on the casing begins flashing. There’s a moment of tension, while both the man and Edward wait for it to explode, and then the guard collapses, clutching at his ears, blood streaming from his nose. His colleagues rushed to help him, all their focus on their fallen comrade, which is why they don’t see Harleen until it’s too late. She lays one out with a punch, and the other goes down from a combat boot to the face.

“That bright enough for you?” Harleen asks, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Stop baiting him, Harley,” Selina says, picking up to now silent sonic device. “You’re meant to be the villain wrangler remember?”

“Are you sure you didn’t mean strangler?” Harley asks wistfully. “I could have sworn you said strangler.”

“Wishful thinking, dear lady,” Oswald says, putting a hand on her arm.

“Touch me again, Penguin, and you’re going straight to the head of the list,” Harleen growls.

Even Jonathan cracks a smile at the sight of Oswald's horrified expression.

With the guard post cleared, the goods entrance is deserted. Even the constant buzzing of the flickering halogen lights overhead can’t dim the excitement of being so close to freedom. Even Harleen’s grating presence can’t.

He can smell the salt water and refuse stench of Gotham Bay, can see the night sky, bright with city lights reflected on smog. He can see home.

So of course, that’s when the gunfire starts.

The quiet of the night is broken by the rat a tat tat of machine gun fire and the wailing of alarms. Behind them men are shouting, ordering them to surrender, even as they continue to fire.

Oswald yells, clutching at his leg, blood seeping through his fingers.

“Come on,” Selena yells. "Not far now!”

Harleen taps her earpiece, shouts“We’re close, and we’ve got company,” all attempts at subtlety abondonned.

She and Selina grab one of Oswald’s arms each, hoisting him off the ground as they run, Jonathan and Edward sprinting to keep up.

The gun fire has stopped, replaced by the sound of pounding feet.

They careen up the ramp and out of the tunnel, onto a back alley behind the prison. A few feet away is a glowing blue circle of light, clearly some kind of portal. Harleen and Selina head for it without hesitation, not slowing, and Jonathan follows blindly.

Edward pauses on the edge of the light, uncertain and distrustful of magic, when one of their pursuers crashes into him, sending them both toppling into the light.

There’s a moment of confusion, of temporal and metaphysical uncertainty, and then Edward is rolling on long grass, the guard’s hands around his throat. He struggles, reaches for pressure points and tries to kick, but he’s exhausted and the man is mad with fear and rage.

Edward’s vision is starting to flicker, everything going dark as he loses oxygen, and then there’s the sound of something sharp hitting flesh and bone, and the guard collapses on top of him, a dead weight.

He pushes the man off him to find a boy of ten or eleven watching him with wide dark eyes. A cat is draped around his neck, fastidiously licking blood from its paws.

The world is still hazy, his brain struggling to make sense of anything, and he finds himself focussing on how pale the boy is, his skin to white it’s almost translucent, his blood giving him a bluish tint.

“What…?” Edward croaks, his voice rough and too quiet.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t inform Batman of my murderous assistance,” the boy says, holding out a hand to pull Edward to his feet.

When the dizziness begins to fade, the world coming slowly back into focus, he sees that they’re on the unkempt lawns of Wayne Manor, uncared for since Bruce Wayne was revealed to be Batman (don’t think about that, don’t think about how you didn’t solve it, push it away, not important), the other members of his impromptu rescue party watching him with a mixture of concern and vindictive pleasure.

“You okay Eddie?” Harleen asks, sounding genuinely worried. “I didn’t realise they were so close!”

“Perfectly." His voice comes out rough, his throat bruise and sore from the attack, but he refuses to let it show. "Who is this?”

“Klarion,” the boy says, with a funny little half bow that makes his cat yowl at being dislodged. (It must have been a yowl, because that’s the noise cats make, and he’s too tired to deal with cats who scream like damned souls). “I’m your ride home.”


	5. Ultimatum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No major warnings except some discussions of how screwed up Bruce is, and how horrible prison (and stuff in general) must be for speedsters. Subject time really sucks sometimes.

Jonathan hadn’t wanted to be broken out of prison. It had been boring, but after half a lifetime in Arkham, he’s used to boring (punctuated by short periods of extreme excitement, but he tries to avoid those). The important thing was that he had been safe. Even insane, Superman wasn’t going to kill people who were safely locked away, no threat to anyone.

But now here he is on the lawns of Wayne Manor, a fugitive against his will. He sighs. It isn’t the first time, and it probably won’t be the last. People have this strange idea that he wants or needs to be rescued, when actually he’s perfectly capable of rescuing himself if need be.

“What now?” he asks Harley when the strange pale child has disappeared with Penguin and Eddie.

“Now we wait for our ride,” Harley says cheerfully, flopping down to sit on the grass, her legs stretched out in front of her. She looks like nothing so much as the clown puppet that had sat on a shelf in Jonathan’s room as a child. He’d been terrified of the thing, and Grandmother had made him spend two whole days in the greenhouse as punishment for smashing it. It had been worth it.

“The child?” he asks. He crouches down and pats the grass gingerly, but it’s not too damp. Not dry of course, nothing in Gotham is ever entirely dry, but close enough that he folds his long frame down to sit beside his former student.

He’s always been fond of her. He remembers her as a young medical student (an impressive feat given he’d tried to blank out most of his students) eager and naïve but intelligent enough to actually be worth teaching. She hadn’t been his student when she’d taken the first steps onto the path of supervillainy. He’d left the university by then, focussing on producing the first batch of what would later become his fear toxin, but he remembers the murder, and the photo of Harleen. He remembers thinking she didn’t look nearly as upset as she probably should have been, and being a little bit proud of her for it.

She’s grown up since then, though not necessarily improved. Joker had stalled her natural progression to mad scientist-dom, perverted her skills to suit his own whims and in doing so, stifled the possibilities her brains and talent should have offered her.

“Klarion the Witchboy,” Harley says, staring up at the night sky. “Dangerous and unreliable, but on our side for now.”

“I’ve never liked magicians,” Jonathan says. They twist up all the rules of the universe, make a mockery of science. They can do with a whispered word what he spends months of blood sweat and tears to achieve and the worst part is, they can never explain how they did it. “Is he human?”

“Mostly, I think. The way John explained it, his people have demon blood, and are inbred as hell, but are otherwise human.”

Hmmm. Jonathan isn’t sure he likes the way she’s said John. She sounded wistful, longing, and her taste in men leaves a lot to be desired. He supposes it’s only natural that she’d have moved on, it’s been three years since Joker’s death, but he doesn’t like it. He’s uncomfortable with this protectiveness he has towards her, doesn’t know what to do with the feelings and wishes profoundly that they would just go away, but a decade on the streets of Gotham, at odds as often as they worked together, has only increased the respect he has for her.

He doesn’t know how to ask the questions he wants to ask, (who is this John, does he hit you, does Ivy know about him, does he know about Ivy) so instead he says, “You’re working with Batman.”

Harley shrugs. “He’s not so bad. Less growly than he used to be. Selina keeps him in his place. And his kids.”

Jonathan frowned. “I had heard they were all dead. All but Robin.”

“Nah, alive and kicking. Except Nightwing. Nightwing’s dead.”

Jonathan had never liked the first Robin much, too friendly, much much too chatty, but it was still a shock to hear it confirmed. He’d been a part of the city for so long. It was hard to imagine Gotham without him.

“Who else is with you? Who else stands against Superman?”

“Me n Selina, Red Robin and Red Hood, Black Lightning, Klarion, Detective Chimp, Mr Fate. John Constantine and Zatanna.”

It's a depressingly short list, and severely lacking in big names or heavy hitters. “Not enough.”

“We’re something of a recruitment drive at the moment,” Harley says, patting his hand affectionately. He’s never entirely understood her need to touch, but he doesn’t object enough to move away and risk offending her. She will be his one true ally in whatever den of Bats is their eventual destination. He needs her on his side. “You’re just the first step.”

“I dread to think what step two might be then,” he says, and she laughs softly.

They sit in silence for a long time, her hand warm where it still covers his, Harley watching the stars and Jonathan trying not to get caught watching her. He misses his mask. With the mask he can stare at anyone he wants.

The companionable quiet is broken by a flash of blue light and an unearthly scream that marks the return of Selina and Klarion.

Jonathan hurries to his feet, embarrassed at having been caught doing something so normal and human as enjoying his freedom and the company of an old friend.

“If I have to see either of those two again in the next decade, it’ll be too soon,” Selina says, shuddering.

“I think the fat one is sweet one you,” Klarion comments, reaching up to stroke the head of his hellbeast in cat form.

“No,” Selina says, “he’s just a creep. He’s like that with all conventionally attractive women.”

Klarion pulls a face. “I do not understand adults,” he complains.

“You and me both kid,” Selina says with a smile. “We all ready to go?”

Jonathan turns to Harley to guidance. He has no idea yet what it is the Insurgency want from him, or what he’ll need.

“I supervised the stocking or your lab myself,” Harley says, with a small smile. “Should have everything you need. I wanted to stop and get your mask too, but there wasn’t time.”

The fact that she’d even thought of it warms Jonathan somewhere inside with an emotion he thinks must be affection. He’s heard of it, of course, but this may be the first time he’s actually experienced it. It’s strange, but not unpleasant, and accompanied by a desire to do something nice for Harleen in return. Maybe he won’t fear gas her, when this all inevitably falls apart.

He nods at Selina to show that there’s nothing else they require, and Klarion grins and begins to chant something under his breath, low and intent. After a moment he begins to glow softly, and then a circle of blue light open at his feet.

Harleen grabs Jonathan’s hand, squeezing once in a way that’s probably intended as reassurance, and tugs him into the light.

There’s the sensation of the entire universe twisting sideways around him, a sudden painful pressure in his ears like being in a plane, and then they’re standing in a large stone entrance hall, and Batman is staring right at him.

Jonathan freezes, his instincts screaming at him to run, to hide, but there’s nowhere to go. Harley must feel his distress, because she moves closer, wraps an arm as high up his back as she can manage and says in a low voice designed to heard only by him “it’s okay. You get used to it, and he really isn’t going to hurt you, I promise. Right now, he needs you, we all need you, so nothing bad’s going to happen, okay?”

It’s a little humiliating, having to be reassured by her like he’s a scared child, but it helps, allows him to relax his muscles enough to be able to actually move.

“Jonathan,” Batman says, and it’s not his normal voice, that low forced growl. This must be his real voice, the voice of Bruce Wayne (Edward had nearly had a complete breakdown when that was revealed. He doesn’t cope well with having riddles taken away from him before he’s solved them.) “Thank you for coming.”

Batman sounds and looks as awkward about this whole thing as Jonathan feels, which is oddly reassuring.

“Didn’t get a whole lot of choice,” he points out, because damnit he hadn’t _wanted_ to be rescued. Why does no one ever ask him about these thing?!

“I know you have no reason to trust me,” Batman says, “But we need you. We need your expertise, and it was urgent enough that this seemed the only solution.”

“What exactly is it you want me to do?” Jonathan asks, wary. He doesn’t have that need for validation Eddie does, and in his experience, people acknowledging his genius has never led anywhere good.

Batman looks as surprised as the cowl allows (why is it wearing it, when his identity is know? Is it a comfort to him, the way Jonathan’s mask is, or is it an intimidation technique?). “Harley didn’t tell you? We want you to take out the Yellow Lantern Corps.”

 

* * *

 

Alfred has met very few of Batman’s many enemies in the flesh, but after so many years riding along with Bruce on his missions, feeding him information and watching through his eyes, he feels he knows them all.

Miss Selina he’s never had a problem with, despite Bruce’s insistence on treating her as a major threat. She doesn’t kill unless her life is threatened, and her thefts are quick and clean, no witnesses and no casualities. Of course, he can’t approve of thefts, especially not from public museums and art galleries, but she doesn’t do real harm. He could send Bruce out to chase her, confident that the worst he’d come home with was a little bit of heartache when he made himself deny her advances.

(The one good thing to come from this horrible war is that Bruce has finally stopped rejecting her. The look of surprised pleasure on Bruce’s face every time Miss Selina kisses him, or holds his hand, warms Alfred’s old heart.)

Dr Quinzel, well, she’s done a lot of real harm. But it wasn’t exactly her fault. Wouldn’t be the first time a girl did something stupid for her man, and wouldn’t be the last. And she’s better now, kind and patient and lacking that manic edge he remembers from before. She’s learning how to be herself all over again, and so far Alfred likes the person she’s becoming.

Dr Crane is another one who’s done truly terrible thing but who Alfred has never hated, not like he hated the Joker. Clearly the man is responsible for his actions, and should be held accountable, but at the same time, it’s impossible to miss how damaged the man is. How fearful and desperate. It’s the one time Alfred is truly uncomfortable with Batman, not with what he means for Bruce but with what he is and does, watching him fight Scarecrow. Crane’s very real terror of Batman is impossible to miss, and it makes Alfred deeply uncomfortable to see the boy he raised terrorizing a broken scared man, even if it’s for the good of the city.

In a strange way then, he’s glad to have the man here. Despite the war, and despite the losses they’ve suffered, there’s been a lot of healing in the last couple of months, and he has some small hope that perhaps that might prove the case for Crane as well. He’d like to know who the man is, behind his fear and his experiments. Whether he’s still a monster, or whether, like Dr Quinzel, there’s someone worthwhile buried deep inside. He tries not to pass judgement until he knows someone, and he has a feeling no one truly knows Dr Crane.

Since the mission was announced, all happening so fast, he’d had no time to prepared, or even to even change his plans for supper. Fortunately it’s bœuf bourguignon, and will easily stretch to one more. He’s found himself cooking a lot of stews, since it’s become impossible to know how many will sit down to any one meal. (He does insist those who are eating sit down. He’s never approved of eating on the fly, and since they have the tower’s enormous dining room, easily as big as the one in Wayne manor, there’s really no excuse.)

While Miss Selina and Dr Quinzel have been out, he’s done one last tidy up in the lab they’ve set up in the basement, making sure everything was in its proper place and the more dangerous chemicals safely locked away. Wouldn’t do for Miss Rose to get her hands on them. That didn’t bear thinking about.

(He’s enjoying it more than he’d admit, having the little girl underfoot. Not that he doesn’t love his boys, he does, more than words could say, but he has missed having a child about the place. Master Damian has never truly been a child, not in a lot of the ways that mattered, and Miss Rose’s bright untroubled chatter is a delight to him).

When he’s satisfied that everything in the lab was perfect, or as close to perfect as it was going to get in the circumstances, he feeds the prisoner.

He’d met the Flash only once before the war, but just like the villains, he’s watched him through Bruce’s eyes more times than he could count. He’d seemed like a good man. A nice man, which was rare enough among superheroes. But then, he’d thought the same thing about Clark Kent. A little spoiled perhaps, a little sheltered, but a good man. He’d still thought it, even when Joker was lying dead, because one momentary lapse in a lifetime of control did not make you a bad person, whatever Bruce might think.

Alfred understood Clark Kent. He was a simple man, not evil, or even malicious, just scared. Scared and angry and far too proud to back down. He remembers Master Damian biting his lip till his bled to keep from complaining about the skinned knees he gained when he insisted that he didn’t need help learning to ride a bicycle. In the wrong, but so proud he’d rather hurt himself than admit it. One more reason to fight to get Master Damian back. He and Clark Kent are too much alike, and the last thing Damian needs to is to see someone he regards as a hero displaying all his worst traits as though they were virtues.

Master Bruce is coming around, he knows. He’s always wanted Damian back, but Alfred thinks maybe he’s reached a point where the rescue won’t end with Damian in the cell next to the Flash.

He doesn’t like how they’re keeping the Flash. Even if it turns out Alfred has been wrong about him, that he’s not the good man he thought him, keeping him chained up like that, gagged except during his meals, is inhumane.

Alfred tries to make up for it a little by talking to him, and giving him brief innocent touches, small things to try and stave off the effects of long isolation.

“Hello again, sir,” Alfred says, keeping his voice firmly friendly, cheerful enough to hopefully be reassuring, but not so much that it seems like he’s enjoying the man’s suffering. “Boeuf bourginguon today, and rather good too, if I do say so myself.”

He unbluckles the straps around Flash’s head, carefully supporting his head as he props him up enough to begin feeding him spoonfuls of stew. The man is thin, his face hollow and gaunt, and Alfred wanders just how many calories it takes to sustain a body like his. He’s started bringing him some of Master Tim’s build up milkshakes in an effort to get more into his body, and making fat and sugar laden deserts. Bruce raised his eyebrows when they had spotted dick twice in a fortnight, but there’s nothing like steam puddings to put some meat on a man’s bones, and just because Flash is a prisoner doesn’t mean they shouldn’t look after him. In fact it means it even more, gives them a duty of care which Alfred has been distressed to see Bruce mostly forget. Sometimes he thinks he’s forgotten that they even have a prisoner.

“Smells good,” Flash croaks, his voice rough with disuse ,and Alfred decides then and there that he’s going to put his foot down. They can kill the man or release him, but they can’t keep him here. Doesn’t matter how dangerous he is, doesn’t matter that Bruce will never accept death as an option, they cannot continue to hold the man and call themselves the side of good.

“I’ve always had rather a knack for French cuisine,” Alfred says, spooning up stew and gravy and offering it to the prisoner. “And extra butter on the mash of course.”

“Of course,” Flash agrees. He takes a mouthful, savouring it for a moment before he swallows it down. “Of all the prisons I’ve been in, this one definitely has the best service.”

“I endeavour to maintain standards, regardless of how difficult the circumstances,” Alfred says severely.

Flash snorts something that’s a little too dark to be a true laugh. “I suppose the man you work for becoming a terrorist and hiding out God knows where with old friends as prisoners does count as difficult.”

“Master Bruce is not a terrorist, sir, and I will thank you not to say so. But this is certainly not somewhere I would ever have chosen to live. Not even a proper range, and the refrigerator is distressingly inefficient. Still, needs must.”

Flash looks a little contrite, apparently aware that he’s pushed a little too hard at a genuine sore spot, and says, “well you’d certainly never know the kitchen wasn’t up to standard when you produce food like this,” as a peace offering.

Alfred accepts it, inclining his head a little in acknowledgement of the compliment.

“I cannot take all of the credit,” he says with a small smile. “Miss Rose insisted on helping.”

She’d found the prisoner on her third day here apparently, sneaking away when Miss Zatanna was busy consoling Mr Constantine. (There’s an urge, always, to call him John, which he knows has everything to do with his own snobbishness and Constantine’s accent).

She’d been distressed, but surprisingly accepting of the cells. She understood all too well that there was a war happening outside.

Flash smiles at that. He doesn’t have children, Alfred knows, but he’d like them. He wonders how his wife is coping with him missing. It’s a horrible thought, and he promises himself again, he will put an ultimatum to Bruce. He won’t leave the poor woman in a limbo of not knowing any longer.

“Gotta say, she came as something of a surprise. I really hadn’t expected Batman’s super-secret hideout to include little kids running around.”

“And here I thought you knew Master Bruce,” Alfred says, and lets himself smile a little. Bruce’s tendency to adopt waifs and strays (and that’s accompanied with a sudden worry about who might be feeding Titus, and Alfred, and Batcow and the Bats) has been a source of great joy and equally great sadness to him. His boy, his sweet serious strange little boy has so much love to give, and so little idea of how to go about doing it. It’s really a wonder any of them grew up as well adjusted as they did, even Master Tim, who is the strangest of them, or at least the strangest considering his relatively normal background.

Flash laughs. “It was always something of a running joke on the Watchtower. Not that Ollie was much better, but at least most of his were related to him. How Bruce even found that many kids in need of terrifying vigilante parents, I have no idea.”

"Generally they find him. He just accepts them when they turn up,” Alfred says. He’s considered more than once asking capital F Fate if lower-case f fate had had a hand in that. Ultimately though, it doesn’t matter. Whether they were sent by providence or pure chance, Bruce loves them all and Alfred wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s kinda hard to imagine Bruce as a dad,” Flash says. “We always saw him in full Bat-mode. Clark saw more of the man underneath, he must have for them to have been such close friends, but the rest of us… He was always so… professional with the Robins. Cold. He never even smiled at any of them.”

“Master Bruce rarely smiles with his mouth,” Alfred tells him. “The secret, since he was a little boy, has been to see the smiles in his eyes. The children all know that. Just like they know that he loves them, even if they forget it sometimes. Even if he forgets it sometimes.”

“Damian was… well, the last time I saw him,” Flash says softly. “As well as he could be, at least.”

“Which is not very well at all,” Alfred says with a sigh. “Master Dick was… they were close. In some ways Dick was as much Damian’s father as Bruce. When I think of him out there on his own…”

“He’s not alone,” Flash says, his voice soft with sympathy. “He has Clark, and Diana…”

Alfred purses his lips. “And that, young man, is infinitely worse than loneliness could ever be. We had only just begin undoing the damage a decade living with heartless killers did to him. To think of him in the hands of people like Wonder Woman and Superman…”

“You…” Flash flickers, jumps, his version of a thoughtful pause. “You think Clark is worse than Ra’as.”

“Of course. Ra’as al-Ghul never makes excuses for his actions. He embraces the darkness and wears it proudly. That is a far safer thing than the man who ‘smiles and smiles and is a villain’.”

Flash is silent for what must seem to him like a long drawn out moment, but in reality is only a few seconds. When he meets Alfred’s eyes again, his expression shows such exhaustion of spirit Alfred almost makes the decision to release him then and there, consequences be damned.

“Alfred… how long have I been here?”

“Just over two months, sir. It was November 2nd when you were brought here. It is now January 6th.”

Flash laughs, low and humourless. “God, is that all? It feels… so much longer.”

Subjective time, Alfred feels, is a truly terrible thing. This man must feel that he has been held, alone and unable to move, for a decade or more. And who is to say how Clark Kent would have turned out without the curse of minutes that seems like hours, hours and hours alone somewhere no one could follow?

“It will not be much longer now sir. I do not intend to let the current situation stand. Enough is enough.”

“And if Bruce doesn’t agree?”

“Then,” Alfred says, with the sort of calm certainty that carried him through untold fire fights, “I shall be forced to take matters into my own hands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, finally finished this! There's probably going to be a few side stories before we get to the next proper installment, but it is coming I promise.
> 
> Thank you all for your support and comments, it means the world x


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